Some People Never Change
Rated SAFE
Spike sat on the fence with a boot propped up. He liked being out here, under a sun that that didn't turn him to dust, but he sure as shite couldn't figure why people had gone back in time five hundred years. Pig wrestling. Spike snorted as Xander threw his arms around a fucking greased pig and held on for dear life as the crowd roared. Spike had seen the Old West the first time around and it'd been as dusty as unhygienic and as boring as it was this time around. Hopefully the Alliance would soon forget William Pratt and Spike could hack the computers and create some new identity on one of the core planets because there was only so much pig wrestling any self-respecting vampire could watch before imploding.
"Did you see that?" Xander asked as he bounced up, all puppyish energy. Whatever spell Willow had used to protect Xander, it had protected him from more than age. His friends' deaths, the end of the world, the mess on Miranda... Xander had seen them all, grieved deeply for them all, and then moved on to find that youthful joy in some new bauble. When Spike had first realized that Xander was immortal, he'd expected the sod to turn into Angel, brooding his way through eternity. Instead, Xander was the light that had kept Spike from turning into a depressed mirror image of his grandsire.
"Wasn't looking," Spike lied. Xander got an injured expression before he narrowed his eyes.
"You liar. You did too watch."
"Did not."
"Did too." Xander punctuated that with a poke at Spike's stomach.
"Oi. Not nice to poke family, pet."
"Not nice to lie."
"I didn't."
"Did too," Xander sing songed. A few of the people in the crowd were watching, and Spike laughed, catching Xander's hand and pulling him close, dust, mud, pig muck and all. One of the bints got a real soft expression on her face as she settled her elbow on the top rail of the fence and rested her chin on her hand.
"River," the girl next to her hissed, pulling at her arm. "That ain't polite. Don't stare at the sly boys."
"Makes me feel all bright inside," River said, her voice dreamy. The other one glanced over, and Spike twitched an eyebrow at them. Under his arms, Xander had that slight tremble that meant he was struggling to not laugh. On a good day, Xander laughed at most anything, and today was a good day.
"Well, yeah." The girl dropped her voice to a whisper that only a vampire would be able to hear. "Lookin' at two guys like that is enough to make any girl all lustful, but you've got to watch them out of the side of your eye, like this." She tried to demonstrate, but Spike timed it so that when she tried to sneak a quick peak, she looked just in time to see Spike's hand slide down to cup Xander's cock right through his jeans.
Xander snorted, the laugh he'd been holding bursting out, and the girl with River stood with her pupils wide with lust and her mouth about hanging open.
"Stop it. You're so not nice." Xander pushed at Spike's arms, but he didn't push very hard. He stopped when the River girl came dancing over toward them. Something in the way she moved reminded Spike of Dru.
She stopped less than a foot from them, her head tilted to one side. "One light chases away all the darkness," she said solemnly. Xander went still.
"That it does, luv," Spike agreed. "It's the only thing that can."
River smiled and turned back to her friend, dancing away through the crowd as her little chum tried to get her out of sight. Spike watched them, a feeling of deja vu making him miss his sire more than he had in four hundred years.
"Spike?" Xander asked.
"Yeah, pet?" Spike still tracked River's movement through the crowd.
"Do you ever wonder about reincarnation?"
Spike looked down at his boy. "Yeah, I suppose I do," he agreed, and then he pulled Xander closer, grateful that he'd never have to go searching for this particular soul. Xander was his, body and soul, forever.